


Once the Storm is Over

by Joels_revolver



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Closure, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27958637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joels_revolver/pseuds/Joels_revolver
Summary: Post TLOU2Ellie returns to Jackson. Dina is not the only one she needs to make amends with.
Relationships: Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us), Ellie & Tommy (The Last of Us)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37





	Once the Storm is Over

It takes Ellie three weeks to work up the courage to walk to his house.

It’s a cool early morning. Jackson is still asleep.

The house looks the same as it did last time she was here, about two years ago now. Ellie doesn’t know why she’s surprised, but she is somehow.

Two years.

It feels like a lifetime ago.

She ascends the stairs to the porch, trailing her hand up the banister. The chairs and table are still there, almost as if nothing happened and Ellie was coming back from patrol to watch a movie with him. She can picture him, opening the door, coffee mug in hand and that lopsided smile on his face.

Her throat tightens and Ellie shakes the image out of her mind. She’ll never see that smile again. Two years and still the thought doesn’t hurt any less.

“Bit early for a visit.”

Ellie whirls around. 

“Tommy.”

He looks older than Ellie remembers him, standing there in his usual denim jacket with a small tired smile on his face.

Ellie gets the feeling that she isn’t the only one to whom the last two years have felt a lot longer.

“I heard you’re back,” he says, “wasn’t sure if you would show up.”

“Maria said I’d find you here.”

Tommy nods, hesitating as if unsure of his welcome, before stepping on the porch and leaning his forearms on the railing. He reminds her so much of Joel in that moment that Ellie has to look away. She leans her back against the railing, reflexively trying to grasp at the fingers that aren’t there anymore. She fiddles with Dina’s bracelet instead.

Tommy has his face angled down at her hands, then he looks up at her with a worried frown. Ellie draws her hands apart before he can say anything, propping them on the railing behind her.

“You live here now?” she asks.

“Couldn’t bear to give it out to anyone else.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

It’s good, knowing Tommy has the house. It’s better than some stranger living in it and it’s better than leaving it empty, as if waiting for Joel to come back.

She pauses. “So… you and Maria?”

Tommy smiles a sad smile. “We’re working on it.” He interlocks his fingers, rubbing his thumbs together. “You and Dina?”

“Working on it.”

He nods in understanding. “She never did forgive me for coming to the house that day. Can’t say I blame her.”

“Tommy-”

“No, Ellie, listen,” he says insistently, turning to face her, ”I never should have said those things to you, demanding that you finish it, only because I couldn’t. Christ, if Joel had been there he’d have punched my teeth out.”

_If Joel had been there._

Ellie hasn’t heard that name spoken out loud in so long it’s jarring somehow when she does. Like she’s been under water this whole time and his name is the only word she can hear clearly. Tommy said it so casually too, like it doesn’t cave his chest open every time he says it.

“I had to go. _Needed_ to to make my peace with it.”

“And did you? Make your peace with it?”

“I’m trying to.” She looks down at her shoes. “It’s just really fucking hard.”

“Yeah.”

Ellie studies his profile, his ruined eye. She should tell him. As much as Ellie has suffered he has suffered the same. Joel was his big brother. He deserves to know, even if he can never look her in the eye again after that.

So Ellie summons every bit of courage she has left in her. She turns around, puts her hands on the railing.

“I didn’t do it, Tommy.”

His head turns ever so slightly in her direction.

“I didn’t kill her. I had my hands around her neck and I couldn’t do it.”

“Why not?”

There’s no judgment in his voice. He says it like he already knows the answer. Like he knows that Ellie needs to say it.

“Because it wasn’t about the revenge,” she lets out. “I felt like I owed it to him. He gave everything to save me and I couldn’t do the same for him, I didn’t forgive him in time, I-” her voice falters. Her grip on the railing is so hard her hands hurt.

“Yeah, that’s exactly it,” Tommy says. “It was my idea, you know. Helping her, giving them our names.” He scoffs at himself, “so fucking stupid.”

Ellie almost smiles. Joel always said Tommy was the kinder of the two. That it came so easily to him, while Joel always had to think twice before giving out a helping hand. Joel never said so but Ellie’s always thought that he grudgingly admired Tommy for it.That he still has some kindness left in him in the face of this cruel world. 

“I was going to forgive him. Said I’d try.”

“Yeah, he told me about that. Well, I asked. We got called out at some ungodly hour of the morning and he had the nerve to show up in a good mood.” Tommy smiles sadly, “think that was the happiest I’ve seen him since you two…”

“Yeah.”

They’re silent for a while. Joel’s windchime tinkles in the breeze as the first feathery clouds begin to paint the sky pink.

“Listen, Ellie, I know you’re beating yourself up over this, but Joel never once regretted saving you. God knows half the time I had no fucking clue what went on in that thick head of his, but I know that much. He never regretted it, not during those two years and not in his last moments.”

Ellie’s chest hurts with everz breath she tries to take.

She knows that, of course she does. It’s what made it so hard to stay angry with him. But fuck if she wouldn’t to the exact same thing ten times over if it brought him back.

“I don’t know who I am without him,” she chokes out.

Tommy puts a firm hand on her shoulder. “You’re Ellie Williams,” he says, “you’ll find your way. And I know that wherever that way leads you Joel would be very proud of you.”

“I just miss him so fucking much.”

“I know, Christ, me too,” Tommy says, pulling her closer into his arms. Ellie sacks into his chest, laying her cheek against his shoulder. It feels nothing like a hug from Joel. Joel was taller, a little broader. He smelled different, like pine wood and coffee and everything that made Ellie feel at home, but still this is the warmest she’s felt since he died.

She stays there in Tommy’s arms, letting the collar of his jacket soak up her tears, until the birds begin their song. Tommy’s eyes hold a comforting sympathy when Ellie steps out of his arms. She smiles a watery half smile back at him and for once it doesn’t feel like a stranger on her face.

“The door’s open, you know, if you wanna come inside,” Tommy says.

Ellie hesitates for a moment but decides against it. Not yet. That’s a step she’ll save for another day. Besides, she has one more stop to make.

“Another time.”

Tommy smiles like he understands. “Another time then.”

***

Ellie opens the gate to the cemetery. In a distant memory she remembers walking the way to Joel’s grave once before, but it’s blurry, clouded over by blind grief.

There are flowers on his grave. Ellie’s relieved to see them there. It means someone’s been visiting. Tommy probably. Or maybe Maria or Dina.

Maybe Ellie could get one of Joel’s guitars and learn to play left handed. She could play something for him. He’d like that.

She kneels down by the gravestone, tracing her fingers over his name.

“ _Joel._ ” Her heart beats stronger with the comfort of his name on her tongue. “It’s okay,” she says as her tears drop into the earth below her. “I’m okay.”

She thinks she can feel Joel’s hand on her elbow, pulling her up.

_Come on, up you get._

And that she does.

The first rays of the sun creep over the roofs of Jackson and Ellie can feel their warmth down to her bones. A soft breeze blows by her, drying her tear stained cheeks.

“I’m okay.”

And she feels in the way her heart and soul come alive at the words that she’s right.


End file.
